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Oct. 4, 2022 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:58:31
E411 Tony Hinchcliffe

Tony Hinchcliffe is a stand-up comedian, writer, and host of the live podcast Kill Tony, with new episodes every Monday.  Tony Hinchcliffe joins the show for the first time. He and Theo talk about how they both got into stand-up, the debate between Austin and LA, Tony’s crazy childhood in Ohio, and a lot more.  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit   https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A Keeps: Visit https://keeps.com/theo to receive your first month of treatment for free. RocketMoney: Visit https://rocketmoney.com/theo to start canceling unwanted subscriptions today. It could save you hundreds per year! True Classic: Visit https://trueclassic.com to get 25% off with code THEO.  ClickUp: Visit https://clickup.com to start reclaiming your time for under $5 a month. Use code THEO to get 15% off ClickUp’s massive unlimited plan for a year. ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today's guest is visiting from Austin, Texas.
He was born in Ohio over there in Youngstown, Youngstown.
He is the creator of the Kill Tony show.
It's one of the most unique live shows I've ever been affiliated with.
I mean, it is the dang, it's the cirque de sole of just damn just bullshit.
It's amazing.
You're going to learn all about that.
You're going to learn about him.
It's his first time here on the podcast, and I'm grateful for his time.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.
Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I'll be singing I'm going to stay And I'll be singing And you have, because you're a real posture bear, baby.
I think you've got that.
Straight back.
Oh, you are the shortest distance between two points.
I mean, you are, you are as the crow flies, man.
You've always been strong in stature.
Like one hand behind my back when I'm performing.
I like it, like regal.
Yeah, where do you think that comes from?
Because you kind of have that regality kind of.
I'm sitting here with Tony Henchcliffe for those of you guys who aren't familiar.
Tony is a comedian and a friend of mine.
And we're going to get into his life a little bit.
Thanks for coming on, man.
Of course.
Yeah, it's cool, bro.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where does that come from?
You think?
Because you do have a very, I don't want to say, it's almost a Brit.
It's not, is it British?
What is it?
Kind of.
I'm not sure what.
I'm not sure where exactly it comes from.
But when it comes to stand-up comedy, my friends back when I graduated from high school were obsessed with Dane Cook.
And I walked in one day and they're dying of laughter when he's moving around.
It was the vicious circle and he's walking and swinging his arms.
And I remember thinking to myself, I want to do that, but I want to do it without any of that movement.
I want it to be just the words.
I want to figure out a way.
And then sure enough, when I got to the comedy store and actually saw real stand-ups, like the guys that sometimes it was the guys that didn't even take the mic out of the mic stand that blew my mind the most.
Wow.
Dice would just walk up to it.
Even I don't do that.
Like it's like no mic in the mic stand or I mean, leave it in there.
He leaves it in there the whole time.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, because you kind of, you are that snipe.
You really are a sniper of humor.
You know, it's like, where can you, it's almost like you have a nail gun and with these jokes in it, I feel like.
Where did you start out at?
Because I don't even know that, man.
I started at the comedy store in the original room.
Yeah.
I went there to sign up.
Fucking Shia LaBeouf's dad.
As crazy as this world is, I made friends with Shia LaBeouf's dad at a Starbucks in Burbank, and I was procrastinating starting stand-up comedy at the time.
And at the time, right then, 2007, Shia had just signed this crazy Steven Spielberg deal, and he left her like five pictures or something.
It was pre, we didn't even know it was going to be Transformers and all these other things.
Like it was still just the infancy of Shia LaBeouf.
So there was this like buzz around the coffee shop.
I was out playing poker with these Armenian guys and they're like, you know who that guy is over there?
That is Shia LaBeouf's dad.
He's this wizard looking character.
So I went and made friends with him and I told him, he goes, what's your plan?
I go, I want to be a stand-up comedian.
I think I'm going to go up to this ha ha or this chuckle hut, whatever it was in North Hollywood at the time.
And he goes, you shouldn't do that.
You should start at the comedy store.
Let them see you start and sink or swim.
And because it's going to, you're going to, the pressure is going to get to you when you get there anyway.
When you think you're ready for there, you're not going to be ready for there too.
So you might as well not be ready for there now.
And it was like great advice.
It really was.
Wow.
Well, I think for maybe for, yeah, I think for some people that advice, it's like you want to get good before you go there.
Right.
But he was saying just stand like just in the firing line.
And it worked out, man.
I signed up for that thing and I watched, I got like number nine out of 15. And I watched the first eight and it was the first eight people I'd ever seen do stand-up and they were doing three minutes and they're just like really bombing.
I'm like, I think I got this.
So for the, and for people who don't know, I remember going to that too.
I would go and sign up.
So you would go, was it Monday night?
Sundays and Mondays.
You'd have to be there by six o'clock.
And you'd sign and put your name in like a bowl or something.
Yeah, you sign this one big piece of paper and then it goes back to the employees who are literally like, all right, that looks like a new name.
That looks like a new name.
That looks like a new name.
And then like after that, they sort of just put people that they know and like sort of earned it.
Like, oh, they've been doing good lately.
Give him number 15. Right.
There's a little bit of mafia back there, like making some choices.
Totally.
So you had the eight people that went up and you were like, so damn.
So you always kind of have had that confidence.
I mean, you have this crazy confidence where it's like, how did this guy who's probably not the largest in stature?
Right.
Get so much dense confidence in him?
Yep.
You know, it's like fucking plutonium or something.
I feel like, isn't that a real thick metal?
I think, yeah, something like that.
I'm not sure.
You know, I think it's a combination of having stubborn Italian parents and being from a weird, tough, crazy neighborhood, getting into a lot of fights with bigger kids and fucking having to scrap and survive back in the day.
And, you know, so I'm just happy to be at the dance.
Yeah.
You know, when I got to the comedy store, I'm like, I'm happy to be in LA.
I'm already winning.
So like, no matter how this goes, it's going to be great.
Plus, I'm going to get better.
You know what I mean?
Like, this is not going to be this bad again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you get up and you're ninth in the line.
Yeah.
And it went well.
And I prepared for months and I blanked out.
I forgot everything as soon as I got up there.
But I literally said, you know, as hacky and as cheesy as it is looking back at it, but I literally go, wow, I've never done this before.
I prepared for months.
Every day I wrote, and I cannot for the life of me remember one single thing that I wanted to say right now.
And those first eight people were all doing jokey jokes that like, you know, the comedians are in the back like, oh, you know.
But when I said that, there was this pop in the room.
People like looked up because it's like, wait, this guy's like being honest right now.
And it's the first time they had seen that, you know, 30 minutes into that show that night.
And that's all it was.
Three minutes of me basically going, oh, no, yep.
Yep.
Still can't remember.
Can't believe it.
Wasn't expecting this to happen.
Like just nonstop.
And I'm still trying to think of one thing.
And like, what's funny is that one went really well.
And then the ones after that for like months were the bad ones.
Really?
When I remembered my jokes was the bad ones, which is pretty foreshadowing, you know, for people that know my comedy style because I like going off script.
And you know what I mean?
Like I like playing and being in the moment, trusting that, you know, it's sort of like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
Like I like, I like, I like that dangerous part, you know, where it's like, maybe I'll say something that I thought of on the drive to the club that night that's not finished and it's just a premise and you have like a race to finish the joke.
You know what I mean?
And you're like, maybe I'll think about it.
Got a couple seconds left almost to the end of the sentence.
Yeah, it's almost like dynamite.
Like you like to light it before you even know what the ingredients in it are.
I like to flip it around in my hands a couple times before throwing it.
Catch it behind my back once and then see what happens.
So that was what, 15 years ago?
Almost 16. Yep.
May 2007.
Yeah.
Fun.
How about you?
You started in.
I started at a comedy.
I did a comedy class actually called Judy Gold Comedy Class.
Okay.
And Ben Glebe was in it.
Wow.
This man that called himself Chicken Man was in it.
And he would just, yeah, he would literally get up there and just yell, chicken man, chicken man.
Whoa.
What happened to him?
I don't, I honestly, I think he got involved in the fast food business somehow.
And then it's perfect.
Because I remember him, I saw him years later on the feed and he was talking about fry, something about fry cooking or something, like a new oil, I guess, that's helping those people, you know, do better or whatever.
But yeah, I remember that.
So at the end of that class, you got to get up for three minutes.
And it was like, oh, wow.
And you got to perform at the improv and you got a tape of it.
So it was like, man, I got it.
So when you leave there with a tape and you were on stage, you feel like you're a comedian, you know.
But I didn't really get going until I think I probably went over to the comedy store and signed up and Tommy was over there.
And yeah, and it was just, that's really, for me, I think when you really start to feel like, okay, I'm dropped in on this, you know, there is something about the comedy store.
Yeah.
Or there, or there certainly used to be, man.
It's a cool building.
Yeah.
It's intimidating.
All those signatures.
So like immediately people are like, whose names are on this wall?
How do I get my name on the wall?
It looks cool.
Oh, there's Jim Carrey in the same font as this newer.
That's a younger guy.
I just saw him.
He just walked by.
Yeah.
So like, how do I get my name in that?
Right.
It's like tricky.
It's like screaming from blocks away to like look at it and take it in.
It's powerful.
Plus, it's black and white and red.
Yeah, it has a very dark, you could feel a little bit of a history in there.
It feels kind of sordid.
You know, you can feel people's energy when they walk through the hall, like what's going on with them, even if they don't say anything.
You can feel the nervousness of some people.
You keep running into people.
You're not even sure if you know them or met them before.
But yeah, when you get up on that stage, it's just like you have to do it.
So fast forward, though, now you live in Austin now.
So you made that move to Austin.
And it's interesting we were talking about the first time on stage because one of the things that, like, I know you've done Kill Tony for a long time.
How many shows have you guys done now?
I think over 600.
We're about to have our 10-year anniversary in June.
And for people that don't know, Kill Tony is, well, you tell them what it is.
You tell them.
You know what?
It's like a crazy comedy show where comedians watch newer or older comedians do one minute, and they sign up for the chance to get one minute uninterrupted in front of a bunch of fans on the internet.
And then I interview them afterwards, and my guest comedians dose in jokes and, you know, contribute.
And we find out more about the person.
So not only if I pull their name out of it, a bunch of people sign up, names go in a bucket.
I pull their name out, they get a minute.
And then I interview them afterwards.
So not only do they win like a minute of uninterrupted stand-up, but then all of a sudden they're on a podcast for like eight more minutes where I interview them and grill them about their life and make jokes about their set and their life and ask them questions and try to figure out what's different about them.
I'm sort of like pulling from like, you know, I was raised on like Howard Stern old school interviews.
Like He would always ask the right questions at the right time and like he'd get more information than it seemed like he should have out of these people.
And that's sort of what I'm trying to squeeze out.
So sometimes I'll just hit him with, what's the weirdest thing in your refrigerator?
Or what's your biggest fear?
Or what's your family?
You raised by a single mom.
And like, I've asked so many of these questions that I've built sort of a palette kind of.
Yeah.
To where I know where things are going.
And I can already tell them.
I'm a paintball, baby.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It blew my mind.
I'd done it before.
And then, so then recently I refell in love with it.
I just, you know, I don't know if I forgot, whatever.
But so I was down there in Austin and you guys had me on Kill Tony.
And this is probably maybe two months ago.
And I come out on stage and I hadn't been on stage in a while.
So I come out there.
I'm sitting there and the, and you guys, and there's just, it is packed, man.
It's packed.
And there's people like, there's like people behind barricades.
Like it is, it's insane the people that have driven hours come in, they put their name in and they want a chance to get on stage.
And then they get up there for one minute, dude.
One minute is not enough time.
That's the thing.
One minute is not enough time to do really almost anything.
Sometimes and sometimes it's way too long for some of these people.
Sometimes it's forever.
Dude, I was sat there.
I just, I was amazed at how much, man, my feeling.
It took me back to when I first started.
And there were moments where you like, I remember feeling one time like my face was trying to get behind my skull so that I didn't have to be there with the, like, I mean, I literally was like, how, where is this?
What is going?
But you're right there.
And people are, it is like the most intense moment of so many people's lives.
And you and I was sitting next to you.
And then there's Brian Redband, your co-host, and the band is behind us.
And you're right.
I mean, you can feel the fear and the uncertainty off of a lot of these people.
You can see the beads of sweat that form on their forehead right after the set or in the middle of the set.
Sometimes if things aren't going well, then if the set goes good, you see the beads form during the interview part.
You can sort of tell what they do and don't want to talk about.
You know, what do you do for a day job?
Oh, they don't mind that.
What were your parents like?
All of a sudden, it's like you can tell because you see the sweat.
So that means that the parents are fan, like, will watch this.
They think they're going to see this.
So they're not that not close, but they're close enough.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I didn't think about it.
So just from body language and things, I can see how they're feeling and what to push more on and what I can get more of.
And if I make fun of them, how they laugh to that, if it seems genuine, that means I can go even harder because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
You know what I mean?
I don't know.
Do you?
Sometimes you are, there is no, you are a paper.
You are a fucking paper cut sometimes.
It's so, it's like, how does that, how do you, how does it, you are a fucking paper cut.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, I just did, I just don't want to be the guy that ends up, you know, being last.
I was a skinny little, you know, tiny little ratty white trash Italian kid, you know, one of the only white kids in a predominantly black neighborhood that I grew up in.
And so like, you know, people are out there walking around hitting people with dog leashes and just a whole bunch of trashy shit going on all the time.
So like I always used words as a defense mechanism immediately.
And then the kids laugh at the one kid that just got a joke made about him and all of a sudden they don't want to mess with me anymore.
And, you know, all the teachers said, you know, making fun of people is never going to get you anywhere.
And I hated my teachers growing up.
I looked at them like the ultimate bullies.
You know, they were, they were, I went to a weird, evil sort of private school bunch of angry nuns and sisters or whatever.
Damn, really black women?
No.
Oh, religious women.
Yeah.
Yeah, nuns.
Like, damn, that's, cause, yeah, if you're going nuns and black women, it's a fucking law.
It's going to be a long afternoon, baby.
Damn.
But I always wanted to kind of prove them wrong.
I'm like, I think I can, I think I can do things with these words.
I think you can get good at anything.
And, you know, so writing on the roast was a real pleasure at the time when those were a big televised event.
Yeah.
You know, so that was like an honor because I'm like, it's a legit job.
All of a sudden, I have health insurance from literally making fun of people.
And then all of a sudden, Martha Stewart saying something that I wrote into a teleprompter for her, Peyton Manning or whoever, all these heroes that, you know, people look up to all of a sudden are saying dirty words that I got them to say.
Yeah, because you got the job writing for Comedy Central, right?
Yeah.
And that's when the roasts were so fire, too.
Fire, man.
Fire.
And then they, I don't know what happened, but they booked Alec Baldwin for the last one.
They booked him too fast, man.
We should do that one now.
Let's run it back, right?
Post-shooting.
Oh, yeah.
That'd be so good, huh?
Is he going on trial?
What's the latest with that?
I'm not sure.
That's a tricky one, man.
That's a tricky one.
See, I moved to Texas, so now I have a gun and everybody has a gun.
And like, I'm like, everybody should have a gun.
And then I think about him and I'm like, maybe everybody should have a gun.
Dude, he's shooting out of his wiener too.
Didn't he even have like his sixth or seventh kid?
He just had another child, too.
He can't stop.
This guy's out here giving life and taking away it.
He's like a fucking Game of Thrones king.
Wow.
That's crazy, bro.
Yeah, but it just blew my mind about the Kill Tony show.
If people haven't seen it, you have to see this show.
And one of the wilder parts was one guy comes up.
He did a minute.
It was not good.
Right.
And he's up there.
He's like, man, I was drinking before.
I was just so nervous.
So some of these people are wasted getting up there.
And then he goes, you were talking to him about his life.
And he goes, well, I'm a drummer.
So then part of your show is you have a band there and you got a blind guy in it.
Yep.
D-Madness killing it.
Yeah.
So he has his own day in Austin.
D-Madness Day?
Yeah.
February 14th is D-Madness Day in Austin.
He's like a famous musician.
All those guys are literally as high level of a musician as you can get.
Studio, live, they do it all.
That keyboardist is on tour right now with Gary Clark Jr.
And if you see him and Gary play, Gary is looking right at him and they're doing the thing.
It's not like some background keyboardist.
You know, they're like, oh, dude, they're doing this shit together.
Wow.
They're like a unit.
Everybody leaves Gary Clark Jr. shows going, God damn that keyboardist.
And like, you know, I'm really good friends with Gary.
He's another reason why I moved to Austin.
And he hooked me up with that guy who hooked me up with the rest of that band.
And, you know, we already had a band in LA, Jeremiah and Joel and Chris.
And they couldn't, you know, everything happened so fast during that pandemic and everybody's, you know, opinions and viewpoints were so different.
And Red Band and I hit the road because we had to do a live podcast.
There was no, you know, everybody else got to go to their studio and keep doing their show.
You know, our show is live.
Because it's in front of a live audience.
We were dying the hottest death.
I mean, it was horrible.
We tried for a while to have people send in minute-long clips and then we would live stream the interview and everything's clunky and everybody's internet sucks and people are just frozen on the screen and it was just a nightmare.
Plus, there's no laughter and I feed off of that.
Like I always say, I'm one of the worst podcast guests.
I get into these things and I like shut down after like 20, 30 minutes.
You know what I mean?
But in front of a live audience, I could go, I could riff.
Like if we were on a stage with two microphones, we could go for hours.
I would have a blast.
So we were dying the slowest death and Redband and I needed a crowd, period.
How long did you do that for?
How long did you guys do that Zoom stuff?
Man, geez, traumatizing time in life.
I'm guessing it was like two or three months.
Wow.
Did it almost kill the show?
Was there ever a thought that maybe the show would stop?
No, I mean, the pandemic made it seem like maybe the show would, there was a second there where it looked like, you know, once we were in month two, three, four, I think we were, all of us were a little bit like, what the hell is going on here?
Yeah, it got weird because remember first they put all those people on ventilators and killed, basically killed all those people.
Yeah.
Like, I hate to say that, but it was like, remember, there was like, we just put 200,000 people in ventilators.
And then it was like two days later, it's like, oh, we shouldn't have put these people on ventilators.
They had no idea what they were doing.
God, that's crazy.
Scary as hell.
That whole thing is so unbelievable.
Yeah.
But so Austin's like, come do it here.
Bars are open.
So I went and did a stand-up show there and in November of 2020 and I hit up Ron White beforehand because I knew he lived in Austin.
And I'm like, hey, if you want to do a guest spot on my show, I'm doing it next Friday, whatever.
And he's like, where are you staying?
And I'm like, I don't know if I got a hotel yet.
He's like, you're staying in my penthouse suite on top of the city.
I'm going to show you a good time.
Damn.
And it really started like immediately.
He's a baby out of cigars in his house.
Oh, God.
He is, Scott.
He's got the ultimate setup.
And he has a hot tub.
It's just tequila.
It's just only tequila and bubbles.
He's the best.
And he really, he like rolled out the red carpet.
And oh my God, he sold me on it immediately.
Rogan was like a finishing touch.
Everybody thinks like, oh, Rogan went to Austin and all of his cronies went with him.
It's like, no, Austin sells itself.
Everybody that goes there, you were there.
You see what it is.
It's nice.
And the things that we're doing, the live music and everything.
And it's just the food is unbelievable.
Well, it was open.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it was open.
It's the same reason.
It's like, I don't believe a lot of the shit that they're doing with this pandemic.
They're killing more people by locking people in.
Like, especially in the recovery community, they shut down all the AA rooms.
Unbelievable.
So I had five friends that overdosed during the pandemic.
Unbelievable, bro.
I mean, just die, you know, like, because people need to have that connection.
Totally.
Do it at a park, six feet apart.
Do something.
100%.
There was other ways to go about it than just locking in.
And it'll be over any second now, one week to stop the spread or whatever they were saying.
Like, get the, what the, I mean, looking back, immediately, any of us start to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but wow.
Looking back on it, wow.
Economically, just the insanity of shutting down so much stuff and looking back at what it actually was.
Like, if you were extremely unhealthy and probably had less than a year to live, this was going to get you.
Yeah.
That's the reality.
It's those people that were, or, you know, they call them underlying conditions, which basically means like, it's a, you know, the clock is ticking.
Dang, yes.
They just definitely, they set the Lord, you know, they just kind of, they've really set the Lord's alarm a little early on them.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
I mean, they took no snooze button here.
Now the only people I know getting it are the boosted triple vax, the people like, those are the only, because in Texas, obviously, there's a lot of unvaccinated people, you know, people that are like, I'll give it some time.
Let's see what happens here.
I don't want my face to go numb or whatever the hell.
You know what I mean?
And then you can always tell who's got that booster.
They come up.
Hey, what's up?
Everything's good.
It's not going to go away in a couple months.
It's fine.
It's not a big deal.
You look right at me.
Why are you making, you know what I mean?
But we have to play along like, oh, it's okay.
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Dude, I had a, I was singing the other day.
I was looking at my balls.
I think my balls have Bell's palsy.
Is that possible?
Your ball's palsy.
Yeah.
Bell's palsy.
I was just like, dude, everybody's nuts have that.
I'm with you.
I got one side holding on for life for some reason.
Bring up some Bell's palsy.
Let's get a look at it.
Yeah.
God, I haven't looked at this in a while.
You know, who had Bell's palsy was good old J.R. Oh, yeah.
Look at that.
Yeah, let's get some better images, man.
Oh, my goodness.
If you don't mind, thanks, brother.
Yeah, sorry.
That's a scary thing.
Bill's palsy is always real, real wild, man.
You know, I used to be friends with Vince from ShamWow, right?
And he had it.
And so in his commercials, he would wear that microphone to cover that part of his mouth so you didn't notice it.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
His story is magnificent, man.
He got hired to sell these rags one day on the boardwalk in Venice.
He started selling.
He was like, oh, I'm good at selling these bitches.
And so he just like licensed them himself, bought some ad time on a couple different networks, like sports networks, and they weren't selling.
And then he bought time on Comedy Central.
And for some reason, the way that it came across, it was like comedic, but also like a product.
And it just went to the moon.
Look at this.
Yeah, right here.
You got to have some good BP right here.
Oh, man.
Oh, damn, baby, that smirk.
Some of these look bad, and then I see that that's the before.
I'm like, oh, man, that's the.
It's rough.
Now, this lady, some ladies, some people look kind of good on them.
Everybody looks like they're like piratey.
Yeah, some people got that real hiccup in their cheeks.
It's almost like they have a hiccup that just got stuck on one side of them.
Yep, that droop.
That bells palsy.
Oh, look at that lady.
The Asian lady right there, the Limpurian, I think.
In the red.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, boy.
Oh.
Yep.
She's sending signals, baby.
Damn, it's wild, isn't it, though?
Yeah.
You don't think about those nerves being in your face, man.
Yeah, that's rough.
Dice had it.
Dice had it bad.
Remember, it was like a news story.
No, I don't.
I remember Dice Clay had Bell's palsy, and he was scheduled to come to Austin the next week.
And it was the only show that I had been looking forward to.
I never go see stand-up comedy shows, and I'm like, I want to see Dice at Vulcan in Austin.
Like, this seems rock and roll.
And he did not cancel.
That motherfucker went up there.
Half his face just electrocuted, just dead half face.
And he fucking used it and he talked about it.
He did a Sammy Davis Jr. impression.
I swear to God.
This motherfucker killed so hard.
It was such a fun show to see.
Damn, yeah.
It seemed like a real adventure for your face, kind of.
I've never had it, but I would like to learn more about it.
But to go back to your show, so this was an amazing part was, so the guy said, he didn't do well at the comedy, but he said, I'm a drummer.
Yeah.
So you guys have this part of Kill Tony where if somebody plays an instrument, they can challenge somebody in the band at that moment for the person's spot in the band.
Yep.
And what's wild is that it's always been a weird part of the show that I always had.
And now all of a sudden we're in the live music capital of the world.
So it's even, you know, even the stakes are raised even higher.
You know, some guy who thinks he can play guitar from St. Louis or some guy that can play the drums from, you know, Dallas, you know, it's a big deal to these musicians to be in Austin.
Like they recognize what's going on.
Plus the pressure of the internet.
Plus they're in front of a live audience.
Plus they're going up against somebody on their own home field.
And it's never happened Where the resident drummer has gotten beaten, it hasn't ever because I was like suddenly because I love the underdog always, right?
Always, and I didn't have any attachment to the band.
I don't know any of them.
Yeah, so I'm like, holy shit, this dude didn't get this, right?
But this guy has a shot right now.
And if he wins, he's on every show from then on.
Like, so like you're a full-time band member if you win, which nobody ever does.
He just got tanked, bro.
This guy.
Yeah, this team slow back.
Was that the one like he like dropped his sticks right away or something?
I don't even know.
We had another one recently where the guy's like, I've been waiting my whole life for this, Tony.
And he starts.
And the first drum that he hits, the stick goes flying back and you see his soul leave his body.
He ended up getting it and catching up a bit.
He put a little challenge in.
And, you know, the harder the first guy goes, that just means the resident drummers, they get to see, which is the ultimate advantage.
Going second's a big deal on that one.
Dude, and you love, like, you just thrive.
I feel like you're like a dream.
You're whatever the opposite of a dream catcher is.
I feel like.
I'm a nightmare thrower.
Or like you just like, it's just this world, but it's such a, the whole thing, the whole show has this, it's that moment that like, I'm going to try this.
It's going to be captured.
Can I do this?
There's all those feelings.
And it's like two and a half hours of that every episode.
Man, it just, it floored me how much fun I had, how much like kind of nostalgia I had.
Yeah.
And how much I realized, I don't think I could do those, what they were doing.
Right.
No, I agree.
People out there, we have regulars that write and perform a new minute every single week.
William Montgomery, David Lucas, you know, Hans Kim, Michael Lair, all these guys that do this.
I am enamored by their courage and their strength and their work ethic.
It is an extreme challenge.
You have the whole internet there like, yeah, I'm sort of sick of them now.
You know, William's been doing it four years, writing a new minute every single week for four years.
Granted, a lot of it he's making fun of Red Band's mom.
It's inside of trading it.
A little bit.
A little bit.
Quite a bit.
Some Apes Twin references that get a big pop from the crowd just because they know that he references Apex Twin for some reason sometimes.
So it's like there was two guys in the front row yesterday wearing Apex Twin shirts because they knew William was going to be with me in Nashville.
What is it, Apex Twin?
I barely even know, and I'm a huge music fan.
Oh, it's a band?
Yeah, I think it's like maybe electronic music or something.
I'm not really sure.
Might be like Acid Bath, man.
I remember we had this lady by us who something was wrong with her, you know, or something wasn't right with her.
I don't know which one it was, but she would always ask if we were going to see Acid Bath all the time.
That's all she said.
She had like kind of this musical autism or whatever.
Apex Twin is an Irish-born British musician, composer, and DJ known for his idiosyncratic work, Electric Style, such as Techno, Ambient, and Jungle.
Dude, ambient sound is so crazy, man.
People put on like white noise, you know?
And it's just people like tucking their kids into bed at night.
Yeah.
And fucking like, wouldn't it be real?
Wouldn't it be weird if it were like actual just noises white people make?
I always wanted to make that.
Can I speak with the manager?
It's just the most whitish shit ever.
It's just somebody putting on their work shoes in the morning.
I'll be there for you.
Would you be there for me too?
It's somebody putting stuff in the recycling bin.
It's just like small sounds that fucking white people do.
Can you point me to the closest cracker barrel, please?
But yeah, man, it's fun, dude.
And you know, the trick, the secret sauce, I think, is I try to keep it interesting for myself.
You know what I mean?
Because I've been there every episode at Kill Tony.
And the other part is Vince McMahon.
Like, it's really just pro wrestling because it's like, I look at the, I always keep our guests a secret surprise.
No one ever knows who's going to be there.
And it's always either famous monster comedians or the future.
You know what I mean?
You're Brian Simpsons who like are just starting to get recognized now.
Or, you know, three years ago, it was Shane Gillis.
Five years ago, it was Tim Dylan.
And I'm literally going.
Same thing with you.
Same thing with all these guys because we know we're in the middle of the lineup.
So we know who's coming.
You know what I mean?
And I would literally say, with no hesitation, I would say, you know, your guest tonight is the future.
You might not know him now, but one day he will be recognized as one of the biggest comedians of all time, ladies and gentlemen, Tim Dylan.
And literally the crowd would be like, oh, I was hoping they don't know yet.
You know what I mean?
Yet they didn't know.
Yeah, I want somebody.
I want damn Chris Rock or I want damn exactly.
But what's funny is they really don't.
They want people like you and him and Shane and Ari and the people that are in the moment with their own defined styles that are still, you know, there to prove themselves, not just some guy that's like, hey, I think you did good.
You know?
Instead, like you were killing me, dude.
You're so good at that.
You want to talk about snipes, dude?
You have little hand grenades in your pockets.
I don't know, man.
Sometimes you got to put them out there, bro.
You're like Tabasco in my suit.
What about what's been kind of the difference?
And a lot of comedians moved to Austin during the pandemic.
And obviously the same, you know, people moved, a lot of people didn't really move to Tennessee as much.
I mean, first of all, things got really weird during the pandemic.
I wanted to also be in a state where somebody could carry a wet.
It's like, you didn't know how weird things were going to get.
100%.
People were looting.
It was on the back of like a lot of the BLM stuff where people were burning and looting.
And so it was like, I want to live in a place where at least if I don't have a grenade on me, the guy two tables over has one, you know?
I love LA, man.
I was there.
I thought I was going.
Actually, I always thought I would retire to Nashville after like growing old in L.A. It's always how I pictured it.
Even though I toured Texas more than anywhere else, I do Dallas three or four times a year.
It's so fun.
Yeah, it's crazy.
God, it's fun.
And Texas has a big, dirty, renegade, raw sense of humor.
So, you know what I mean?
That's right down my wheelhouse.
And I love L.A. And still, you know, sometimes I go back to L.A. for a couple days and i'll do the main room of the comedy store be in the middle of the lineup for their own shows i'll leave in a veil and i get whatever i want basically but my neighborhood was fairfax and third right by the grove right by pan pacific park it was unbelievable i would go down fairfax after doing the comedy store the improv and you make two quick little right turns it was like the bat cave in a very residential commercial
area i would like sneak off into my little end of a one-way street it was i had the most amazing setup and then one day my neighbor's like you might want to be careful tomorrow there's supposed to be some big like rally some big protests blm you know george floyd it should be it should get kind of crazy because they're starting it at this park right around the corner i'm like cool i'm going to go to venice beach and hang out with my older brothers who live out there you know 20
30 minute drive from there so i go to the beach we're chilling on the patio and uh my brother at one point i'll never forget it goes tony come in here isn't this your street and i'm like what my street and the first thing i notice on the tv is the cnn logo like i realize that we're watching the national news not like ktla or whatever right not somebody's iphone not a video exactly not a sketch or something right the time is matched up and i'm looking at a police car on fire at the bottom of
my street wow and then they cut to another police car on fire and it's the top of my street so there's one at hayworth and uh third and one at hayworth and uh beverly oh yeah that's a damn luau bro a lot of pork being grilled baby you know telling you damn and it is a sight to see when you're watching the national news and it's clicking back and forth to both sides of i mean literally one block it is my street like it is it's there's only probably 40 houses
there and one of them's mine so that spooked you spooked the hell out of me so i go there i'm like i literally remember saying i think i have to go yeah and so i got in my car and tried to make it there because i'm like at least i'm gonna defend it because at least i'm gonna grab my laptop right exactly all the little stuff the what my dad's dad's watch or whatever the little things my grandpa's earrings dude if your grandpa was clogged or whatever it was like like damn why the fucking gotta
have papa's butt plug you know what i mean anyway and i barely make it there uh another thing that stuck in my memory is like i was trying to get back to my place and there's a riot crew of american like blacked out shields guns everything moving down the street and i'm like oh i have to take side streets they're about to block this off so like i'm hustling scurrying like a rat to get back to my
place and then that's where it really sets in because the chaos was there the sun goes down and that's where you know a lot of people in the news never covered it like they should have and but it was it was the end of the joker movie it was complete gotham city they lit the trader joe's behind me on fire like my the back of my building was to a trader joe's like and it's on fire and the fire alarms are going off and smoke's pouring out of broken windows and
the paper source across from that windows are busted out fire alarms are going off wow um fires everywhere graffiti everywhere on trees on telephone poles on cars on the street on the ground on the cement on the sides of buildings like the whole thing exploded it was so much worse than people ever know because the next morning the whole neighborhood who takes great pride in live it in living in that area fucking went
out there with rags and pressure washers and brooms and i couldn't believe it it was actually sort of an emotional trip i went for a drive down third up la cienega down beverly up fairfax down melrose and i could not believe what i was seeing people all out there cleaning and fixing it and i think there's sort of a catch to that is people never really found out exactly what happened there like it was chaos and it wasn't that neighborhood it wasn't people from around
there it was you know a different thing coming up from long beach or whatever but then you immediately realize like wow well this place this can happen here it just happened right so whatever just happened can happen here and let me tell you something two years in texas i can say with no hesitation it would never happen there it's absolutely impossible for that to happen there i was always maybe people shouldn't you know what i mean i didn't know where i didn't really have a stance on guns i was too busy only caring about comedy bro didn't really you know that's
another thing about texas is like i'm alive now i'm doing things i'm golfing and then going to the range and then doing a spot and then you know having a nice stick and yeah exactly i mean that was one nice thing that i thought it just like i got i have to be somewhere where i can where things are open yeah i can't just totally go along with this thing that like it just felt insane to me and and of course that's just my natural instincts other people's are different i respect that but totally so i wanted to be in a place that was open um
yeah what do you feel like the comedy scene is different like in austin compared to la like oh will it do you think austin can actually i don't know if anything can compete with some of these bigger markets you know just because of the volume of people i hear you i think that um i think the difference is the industry isn't in austin like you know netflix headquarters and these a lot of people i think we've lived through an age of uh stand-up comedy
to where we've watched the complete evolution we watched it go from okay well you got to have clean three minutes for the tonight show or you know a decently clean 22 minutes for a comedy central half hour to you know okay you could be a little bit edgier on netflix and do an hour and then it's like kind of like oh netflix is sort of cutting down on edginess like unless you're really established they're going to give you notes and and i think that uh it's Wild
West comedy happening in Austin, which is, you know, obviously what people want.
You know, people go to a strip club.
You don't want to see, you know, a girl in a bikini.
No.
You want to see fucking.
I want to hear the N-word.
You're damn right.
Yeah.
I see some buttholes.
Yeah.
I want to see some misplaced ingrown hairs and sparklers.
Yeah, I want to see it all.
I want to see a girl bringing a, you know, a candle to the table, but just, you know, walking on her hands.
You know, I want to see somebody.
Hell yeah.
I want to see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, well, one thing I noticed in Austin was that they stay, you guys lock the phones up over there.
You know?
Yep.
Phones are locked up.
And that's to, you know, our shows are still recorded.
We have, you know, cameras rolling on everything because one thing that we've learned is that it's good to have your own footage so that it can't be taken out of context.
Right.
I've always thought that when someone goes for an interview on any type of network, anything, they should also, if it's a ground where they don't trust maybe that they will be portrayed accurately, they should have someone record at the same time for them.
That's what we're doing.
So that way it's like there will be no real misconceptions here.
100% because it can happen.
You know, it can happen to anyone at any point.
You know, even in that crazy video that happened with me that made me look like a horrible, horrible human being.
Oh, yeah, with the Asian stuff.
Was that Hans Kim?
Was that the different guy?
But 25 seconds after that, his edited version of the video, I had my own video recording of the entire thing in which, you know, 25 seconds after his ends, I end up going, come on, lady, relax.
You're looking at me like I'm serious over here.
Ba, ba, ba, ba, you know, joke about that.
Joke about that.
I'm into jokes.
Like there was no like scene.
It wasn't the chaotic breakdown that it looks like on the, you know, 20-second clip that the person released.
It's, you know, it was a, it was a random casual Thursday comedy show.
I actually yelled at Bobby Lee when I saw him a couple months ago in L.A. I go, that was all your fault, by the way.
You let me call you those words for fucking over a decade without telling me there was something wrong.
Well, that's one of the issues people look at.
There's always that bait Asian.
Yeah.
And they will, they let you say all kind of things or this or that or joke around with them.
Yep.
But they don't email the buddy and say, hey, man, this guy's with, you know, he's, you know, he gets it or whatever.
Right.
And Bobby, yeah, Bobby goes, oh, yeah.
I felt really bad when that happened to you.
And I go, well, thanks for showing your support online.
I'm glad that you saved it so that you could tell me face to face a year later.
You'd think Bobby would have ability to email everybody, especially since he's doing all that browser hunting or whatever on Brendan's fault.
Since he's stalking Brendan on his own, whatever.
That whole debacle was, that's one of the fun.
It's almost like a sketch show.
You know, when you go watch that, it's like they had like screen grabs.
Like Brendan doesn't own a computer, which is the funniest part of all of it, right?
Like he's like, do he's getting this research that he has like screen grabs on his phone.
The whole thing is just so ridiculous.
It's wild.
I couldn't get enough of it.
That was like my, that was my, that was my like thing.
I switched from like police interrogation videos to like following the shop and Bobby Lee thing for a while.
That's on my YouTube algorithms just filled with Bobby Lee, Brendan Schaub, Kalila, like weird.
Cause I can't, there's some, sometimes I'm on one thing and then sometimes I'm like, maybe they did do that.
It like switches quickly.
It's like if you're talking to, you know, your gun-toting friend and then all of a sudden you're with your liberal.
Well, if there were no guns, then this happened.
Sometimes you can see both sides of the argument.
I'm like, well, I mean, Brendan, you know, hate happens to people.
People are jealous.
You know, you're a fighter-turned comedian.
And then all of a sudden, I saw one clip where Kalila's like, yeah, I'm a lot better at the internet than people think.
And I'll destroy someone.
It's like from an episode years earlier.
And like, I'm like, whoa, this is all wild because people have made some serious breakdown videos of that stuff.
Oh, it's well, I'm amazed at how, like, the, uh, what a, there's such a world now with podcasting.
There's also like this soap opera undercurrent of all of it.
You know, I don't play it.
You would think Kill Tony would be a big poker.
And like, I get it.
People like drama, but I don't want, I've always looked at it like if you play that game, those are the types of fans you're going to get.
You want to be drama.
You want to do gossip.
You want to do this.
You're going to end up.
Then you're not even in the comedy world anymore.
All of a sudden, you're in the drama world.
You know what I mean?
And I look at some of the people with successful YouTube shows and podcasts that aren't stand-up comedians, and I see them doing that.
Yeah, like Ethan Klein's show does that a lot.
I notice they get a lot more like, but he does a great show.
And Ethan's a, you know, we've had some great conversations, man.
He's an extremely deep guy.
But yeah, I think that's just their world.
I guess it's also, what is your world?
Right.
You know, and what do you like?
Like, some people, they like that.
Right.
It's like, I guess I don't know if I care about it that much.
Right.
But it's definitely, it's, it's crazy how there's just such a microcosm of like there's like a couple hundred channels that put out clips that I'll see that are of me from different shows and stuff.
And I'm like, there's a whole little ecosystem out here going on of channels and stuff.
And it's like, you want to fight or whatever.
You're just like, what are you going to, you know, it's like, there's, there's just so much podcasting.
It's, it's really its own, it's its own.
I mean, it's a huge world now with layers and like, there's like people making like reviewing, like reviewing clips and things that have happened.
It's, it's gotten pretty deep, man.
Oh, yeah.
There's people reviewing those people's review shows and stealing their ideas and doing rip-offs of their shows.
And like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's like they're reviewing the review.
Yeah, there's like a sports center for podcasts almost now where they're like looking at highlights and replaying things.
And like, it's interesting, though.
It's definitely fascinating to be a part of the little universe.
But what do you see that's different about that Austin scene?
What do you think, like with Joe's Club being built, what do you think?
Do you think it can get to that place where it is like the third biggest city for comedy?
I think it'll be number one.
I really, really, truly believe that because I think that, I mean, I already see it.
I see the amount of tickets that we sell casually, like it's nothing.
Like people are just dying for it and waiting for it.
And people are flying into Austin now when they used to fly into LA and New York to have a comedy weekend.
You know, if they wanted to see, you know, three nights of shows, that's where they would go.
But now words out.
Syringes are on the street, port-a-potties on the crosswalks in LA.
You know about that?
They just started putting port-a-potties at the big crosswalks.
No.
Yeah.
So like you want to cross Hollywood and Vine, there's a port-a-potty there right next to the button across the street.
And it ain't clean.
Spoiler alert.
It's not like a brand new.
It's not like one of those like on-the-set pots.
I would have cut one during Mardi Gras one time, dude.
We stayed in there for a couple hours.
Damn.
We'd hide on drugs and it was late.
We had probably 4 a.m.
And you got to get some cover.
You got to get a little bit of shelter at those hours, especially in New Orleans.
You know, it's got that real human vampires, dude.
A lot of dudes will fucking trying to just sink their teeth into your dick out there at night, you know, out around a French quarter.
Sounds like my kind of party.
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Listen, I think that here's my other theory.
But is there enough comedians?
Will there be enough?
That's my question.
All the guys like Tim Dillman have gone there and left.
Well, he's there.
Tim's there.
He's just waiting for Joe's club to be full-time.
Tim has more property in Austin than anybody.
He talks a lot of shit, but he's like buying it up.
Really?
Oh, yeah, dude.
He gets it.
Tim's out here killing it.
And Segura and Christina and me and Joe and Ron White and a whole bunch of the youth, the future.
Danny Brown.
Do you know Danny Brown?
Danny Brown.
Yeah.
No doubt.
I'm very close with Danny.
He's my hony.
Oh, my God.
I just ate mushrooms with him a couple weeks ago.
Really?
Oh, God.
Oh, so much fun.
He ate like a baseball glove's worth of mushrooms.
And I was tripping my balls off, but I didn't eat as much as him.
And he just was so fun.
He's popping out of corners, being all silly and like funny and stuff.
Times have changed.
Like a lot of brothers wouldn't do mushrooms back in the day.
You wouldn't see a brother on psychedelics.
It just wasn't, I don't know.
I think maybe black people had too much fear and maybe even inside of them and their own history, but you don't want to add any, you don't want to, you know, season up the cauldron any, you know?
But now, yeah, you got a lot more, you know, kind of mustache brothers out there who will do some drugs, you know, psychedelics.
Oh, yeah.
It's fun.
It's cool.
It's cool to see a brother out there tripping.
You know, you're like, hell yeah, dude.
This shit, we're getting equal.
Yeah, we're doing it.
We're all part of the same universe.
Yeah, we're all part of the same thing.
But people are coming to visit.
Those New Yorkers that are real joke gunslingers.
We just had a tell on the show on Monday.
He just did a whole weekend in Austin, and he's looking at it with a twinkle in his eye, like, wait, what are you guys doing here?
This does, you guys do this every Monday, and then you do, okay.
Like, and to any comedian, You know, comedy store style, you know, or comedy seller style.
They come to Austin and they're looking at it with, like, okay, so maybe I'll spend like a week out of every month here.
You know, we get Ari, Shane, and Norman there for four days a month.
And Rogan's bringing good comics down to be on his show.
Yep.
I mean, that's what made me think about it.
It was like, I would like to go for a month and just have an experience of it.
What does it really feel like to be there, go out, get you a sandwich, get you a coffee, get you a, you know, you know, find a wife or something or see it and, you know, and do comedy at night while you're trying to do that, you know, and have a, you know, like a lifestyle of it.
I can't believe how much I love it.
Wow.
You know, spending the whole 15 first years of my career in L.A., I never would have guessed that another option would work.
I'm amazed at that too, living here.
Yeah, exactly.
You know?
And like all of a sudden, you're comfortable and you're a little bit better rested and you have maybe a new hobby or something, something to, you know, because I think in LA, it's or New York, perhaps, it's easy to just be like, oh, I got to work.
I got to work.
It's only about the next joke.
You know what I mean?
I got to, I got to, but then you're not living.
You're not experiencing things.
You're not taking note.
You're not having great conversations where you say something that you realize might be good on stage.
Like living is a huge part of what we do.
Right.
I agree.
And I think one of the things that's happened to Hollywood over the years is it used to be that people went, people had these like wild, like people went there with their energy and like made their dreams happen, wrote scripts.
But now it's been so much like the children of children and nepotism and, you know, third generation screenwriter that it's like the people writing the things and creating the things, they're not, they don't have as much life experience anymore.
Maybe their grandfather did.
Maybe their mother did.
But they're still kind of riding off of those old stories and energies.
So they're not as tuned into some of the reality of just like of creativity, really.
You know, another thing that I think is that it's much easier for people to be jealous and competitive.
There's a lot of billboards there.
I noticed my last trip there.
I'm like, wow, I just always didn't notice.
Like, I mean, the billboards were just part of like the skyline.
It was just the tree.
It like blends in with LA.
And as I'm looking up there, I'm realizing, oh my God, that show looks like crap.
That show looks like crap.
That movie has, it looks, it tells its whole script right there in the billboard.
Like, and I'm judging these billboards and I realize like this whole place does that to people.
Like all of a sudden I'm daydreaming about why does that idiot have a show that's not going to work.
Wow.
Comedy Central's dead as hell.
You know, you're looking at the build itself.
Yeah.
And I'm looking at these billboards and I realize I'm thinking about this.
They have me thinking about these things, which in Austin, you can't, there is no like, oh, oh, I wish I had that or this person would be better for that or this is where that should be.
Right.
So it takes a lot of that business and the jealousy and the like, oh, look at the, it takes a lot of that glitz out of it and stuff like that.
And also it's like these people, you know, in LA and New York, it's the last stand because we've learned now that the podcast is the way.
You can have your own show and build your own fans with people that are into what you're into and like the sound of your voice and want to hear it.
So that old model of like, all right, let's throw this to the people and see who likes it.
Like it's an old school model and it takes away from the ability to build something.
And now people are like, oh, if I didn't start a podcast now, I can't start now.
I'm in too deep now.
But it's like, who knows?
It's like Bitcoin or NFTs or whatever.
Like, who knows what anything is?
Yeah.
Well, there are things that are great about LA too, though.
It's like the weather is absolutely unbeatable.
You can't beat it.
And there's no, there's not even any question about it.
I don't know if there's anywhere in the world you can beat the weather there.
There's barely any bugs.
There's no allergies in the air.
No poisonous animals.
Jesus, man.
A third of my childhood was filled with fucking poisonous animals, dangerous animals, street animals, fucking nighttime animals, fucking just fucking mean owls, everything, man.
It was all fucked, just harrowing, dude.
I remember one time my brother and I are asleep in our bedroom, right?
A fucking owl, like a nighttime owl or whatever, shattered right through the fucking window in our bedroom, dude.
Oh, my God.
Dude, scared me so bad, bro.
We had no idea what it was.
We didn't know if it was like a burglar or what, you know?
That means someone in your family is going to die soon if an owl flies through your window.
Oh, yeah.
Everybody died.
So, yeah, I wish I'd have known that at the time, though.
But there are things that are great about it.
The access to people that are there is also nice.
Like, you know, I have friends like my friend James Blake lives there.
He's a musician, and he's like, I would have never got to meet him if I didn't live in L.A. And it is kind of name-dropping, but he's also like one of the most unique people that I get to talk to.
Like all of us would have never met each other if it hadn't been for L.A. Oh, yeah.
I'm grateful for it.
Just like I'm grateful for Youngstown.
I think that, you know, being from a place and living and having the experiences of being in, you know, a diabolical place gets you to appreciate everything that happens after that, right?
Like you wouldn't be quite as at peace here in Nashville if you didn't know that it takes an hour and a half sometimes to drive from one gig to another in LA or from the airport to your house in LA.
Those little things.
Like here, you get out at the airport, you're here in 10, 15 minutes, right?
Yeah.
Same thing with me.
In fact, I try to set new records each time.
The airport's like a place that now I have like great pride in trying to get home in like seven minutes or eight minutes.
It's crazy.
Yeah, I guess there's, yeah, there's definitely a lot of things.
And it's also like, this is part of the journey.
It's like, you know, communication like is more free on podcasts.
And so it would make sense that maybe they expand out to different areas over time.
It's been really interesting to be in a different place and have access to different Guests and like unique people that normally may not be able to get on a certain platforms or weren't even able to get on like kind of podcasts and stuff.
So that's been really interesting.
And kind of seeing like, well, what's who's the next person that I'm going to get to meet that would be like really, really, really awesome to have come on from here.
Like we got Mike Rowe who's going to come on, right?
So I'm really excited about that.
Like, I don't know if I would be able to have him on if I weren't in this area.
So, yeah, there's different things about it.
And I can go back to LA whenever.
It's always there.
It's still like you go back, the comedy store, the improv, places that I love.
The laugh actors become, it's still great.
It's gotten better, actually, just busier over there.
So the stages are still there.
And it's fun.
And yeah, man, when I go back to the store, it is a party.
Those are my people.
You know, those people that have worked there forever.
You know, we're so close and we have so much fun.
And it's like a reunion.
It's like a different vibe.
Instead of being there all the time, it's like, you know, it's like going home and visiting a family in a hometown.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
It's like, and we also have to be supportive of the places we are.
It's like you have to do that.
Like you have to kind of champion where you are to an extent in order to be able to survive there and have like a nice perspective every day.
What's some news that's going on?
What do we got, Daddyo?
Here we got Tesla Reveals new AI Robot Optimus.
Do you see this?
No.
This is wild.
It will cost under $20,000.
Oh my goodness.
What can it do?
That's what I'm wondering.
Look at it.
I mean.
Okay, it can walk.
Yeah, kind of.
Dude, I don't even know.
I feel like this thing couldn't even work at a, I don't think this thing would make the band at Chuck E. Cheese, honestly.
Yeah.
It's quite the awkward strut.
Like, if that was a human that walked like that, you would not trust it.
Oh, is that waving?
Oh, get out.
Oh, it looks like Biden.
Oh, yeah.
It does.
Just fucking waving at nothing.
Dude, for me, the thing about Tesla is I put in them to get that truck two years ago.
And it's like I keep extending my current lease because I'm waiting for that truck.
And I don't know.
I don't care about this shit.
Can I tell you something?
Have you touched one yet?
Have you been in one?
Uh-uh.
I have.
Is it worth it?
The coolest thing I've ever seen.
And I'm not a big Tesla guy at all.
I like gas-powered, you know, American-made sports cars.
Oh, I want to burn to death if I get in a wreck.
Yeah, exactly.
But this one, and I saw pictures of it, just pictures and video online before.
And I'm like, that doesn't even look that cool, seem that cool.
In person, man, that thing is the most undeniable, baddest.
It goes from, you know, a lowrider to all the way to a monster truck.
Like, you can raise it.
Damn.
The technology is absolutely insane.
You know, Elon Musk is in Austin, Texas, another buddy old pal.
And you were able to get in there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got in the Tesla truck.
Oh, yeah.
And where'd you sit in the front or back?
The front.
Wow.
Yep.
And it's all beautiful.
It's the most different.
I've never seen anything where a picture or a video online is so much different than seeing the actual thing.
I've never seen a bigger, like, uh, just difference in how unbelievable it is in person.
Did it feel like, You know what I mean?
There's a few of those.
That's how it is.
It's like powerful live.
It seems like nothing else.
It seems like a spaceship.
Almost like a DeLorean, but new, brand new.
But does it feel like kind of like a bitch truck?
Or does it feel kind of fucking tough?
Or does it feel shit?
It does feel army tough.
Really?
Like a Hummer meets a, you know, like a Ram, but electric.
It doesn't even seem electric by its appearance.
If that makes sense.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Amazing stuff.
I want that.
Yeah.
And that's the one you got in right like that.
Yep.
Wow.
And it is so cool and so fast and so crazy.
You just want to touch it.
I'm so ready for that.
Yeah.
God, I want to make love in the back of that.
A lot of space.
Unbelievable.
Oh, wow.
Antonio Brown.
Exposes himself to stunned guests in Hotel Pool.
Oh, he showed his butt to that.
Whoa.
Oh, that sounds good.
Why is he naked in this pool?
This might be another country.
You know, his hog's probably so big that he's having sex with that girl the whole time.
And we can even see it.
Look at her.
She's bouncing up and down on it.
You see that?
Dude, if you had a crazy long wiener, you would have to show it to somebody.
No doubt.
Do fun things with it.
Measure for first downs on the football field.
All of it.
You know what I mean?
There's a lot of fun things.
I mean, my buddy.
Get like a one-foot marker on it, like tattooed.
Yeah, definitely.
If somebody's trying to measure something, you hit them with that.
Next thing you know, y'all are making love, you know?
Just like through this sleeve and pull this arm like behind you and just sort of like wave to people with your pianos.
I'm just thinking here.
It's some good.
It's fun to drink.
I just feel like I would, if I had that, if you had, because it's almost like having like a like if you have one of those little dogs, you get to carry it in a thing and show it and take it on the plane, you know?
It'd be crazy if you had like a small bag and you snuck, you know, like you poked it out the top.
Yeah.
Or if you put, took one of those little service animal vests and put it across it.
And it's just like, here he is.
Don't pet it.
It doesn't like to be petted.
You can look at it.
Damn, you got that service wiener, dog.
That's crazy.
Yep.
What's the longest wiener they've ever had?
Can you look at that?
Well, here he is right here.
Look at this.
He's flashing his wiener out the water.
Oh, yeah, there It is and they're looking and you know those men are even looking you could tell with that blur it is absolutely humongous, bro.
I mean, look at that thing.
Look at that.
That thing.
I mean, that's like an alien sighting or something.
That looks like a UFO.
Wow.
Look how long that is.
Dude, that looks, yeah.
That looks like it's got some hit points if it is Roselda Breath of the Wild.
That thing.
Wow, that's crazy, man.
See, it's just, it's interesting.
If you had a, it's like, if you had a great, you should be able to show it to somebody every now and then.
If you got a regular wiener, sure.
Right.
That's disgusting.
No one wants to see a regular wiener.
But a giant wiener is something that both boys and girls can agree on.
Yeah.
Like it's a, it's, it's worth showing off.
What's the biggest wiener, buddy?
Can you look at that?
We might have a blocker on here.
This is interesting.
Biggest wiener ever.
This is good.
This is podcasting gold, if you ask me.
Is it?
Yeah, hell yeah.
Biggest wiener?
Me and you finding out together?
Exactly.
The record for biggest penis in history.
Oh, yeah, that is kind of exciting.
Yeah.
Eight feet?
Nuh-uh.
Oh, it's a blue whale.
That makes sense.
Oh, he's got that.
Okay.
Yeah, we're going to have to put human in the mix here.
Man, you just gave away your cookies on that one.
18.9.
No way.
Wow.
Roberto Cabrero.
Wow.
No way.
Latino coming in.
Oh, man.
That just might be his brother.
He might have a Siamese twin just connected to his groin area.
Dude, this guy, he could rake a yard with that thing, dude.
He's halfway to work.
Has smashed the previous record with his mammoth penis, measuring an incredible 18.9 inches.
Let's see more verbiage on it.
18.9.
What?
The man with the world's largest penis has revealed his daily life is like as he rejected the possibility of having a reduction.
54-year-old Roberto Esquival Cabrera from Saltiomeco has a penis measuring a record-breaking 18.9 inches.
Wow.
Damn.
That's unbelievable, man.
God.
I can't believe him, man.
I would hate that, though.
Would you, though?
Yeah, because then you have to wash your penis.
That's true.
That's a whole other five minutes.
Put lotion on your wiener?
If he had that much wiener, he probably has people to lotion that wiener, you think?
Yeah, he probably has.
But then again, what's the biggest vagina is the real question here.
What's the deepest human vagina?
That's a great question.
What is the deepest human vagina, Bub?
This is.
See, now we're really getting into something here.
Yeah, people never look at this, huh?
Right.
Because that's the real, because you can't put it all the way.
You can't, obviously.
Anna Swan.
Okay, here we are.
Biggest vagina in the world.
I just pop up.
It's just a picture of me.
Penis in the world.
Okay, scroll.
Have yours.
Keep scrolling.
That's nothing.
Wait, did you see that was the guy?
Nuh.
Yeah, scroll back up.
No, up, up, up.
That dude, that's him.
Robert Esquiville Cabrera.
Wow.
Look at that guy.
World's largest penis.
The world's biggest vagina belonged to Anna Swan.
Oh my goodness.
Wow, she died in 1888.
Wow.
19-inch circumference.
It's a little less than the circumference of a rugby ball.
She was a Scottish giantess and reached a height of 7'8 inches.
She also reportedly delivered the biggest newborn ever, recorded at 23 pounds, 12 ounces.
Wow.
It's tough.
That's a fucking Bantam weight, dude.
That is unreal.
Oh, there's the guy.
Oh, there's Roberto, eh?
Oh, my goodness.
Zoom in a little here, Bucky.
Look at the girth of that thing.
Dude, he has it taped like one of those horse's legs when they put the tape on it for it run.
Like it's about to have its own boxing match.
Oh, my God, bro.
Yep.
You've got to be kidding me.
He has a beer koozie on it.
Oh, my goodness.
Look at this.
Wow.
This is incredible.
Oh, my goodness.
Jesus.
Great hair, too, huh?
Oh, my God.
Look at it.
Do you see it in his pantling?
Oh, my God.
Large in that video up, but don't turn the audio on.
My God.
He literally, he walks like, he has to walk like that Tesla robot.
But, uh...
laughter laughter Ha ha ha.
I'm like, nobody walks like that robot.
And then all of a sudden, world's largest penis.
Maybe the robot has a big penis.
Dang, man.
See, that's what I wouldn't want to do.
It's almost like you're like, I feel like you're at church every time.
Like it's like noon at church and it's like fucking, it's ringing against your knees.
Or you get hard at a place where you're like, where you don't, where you shouldn't, like that.
Oh.
But even if it gets hard, it's just like hitting against, there's no like, it's got to just be painful because all of a sudden it's just trapped.
It's like Harry Houdini.
And all your blood, you must lose like a third of the blood in your body.
Yeah, when he gets hard, he just like goes stupid.
Just like, all the blood leaves his body.
There's a cost, man.
There's a cost to everything.
No doubt.
What other news we got here?
So this is one thing that's been popping off a lot is this kind of drug-induced homosexuality right here.
You can turn the audio on it.
So this is a new drug?
No, it's just like a lot of men are there's like been a pattern of men becoming gay based on drug use.
Look at this.
Oh my God.
You see?
Those are straight men.
One more time.
You can tell they don't want to be here, but the drugs got them here.
Look at that.
Damn, boy.
How do you know they're straight?
You can tell, look at them.
Look at that.
One of them called the other one, I think, a f.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's like, you're gay, dude.
Drugs got him like, maybe I do like, dude.
See that one person coming?
See that?
Bam, boy.
What?
What happened, boy?
Nothing gay.
Who gay, bro?
You.
See?
That's crazy, bro.
That's interesting.
I remember a guy tried to get me to do cocaine with him once and then be gay.
You know, try to lock me in a bathroom when I was trying to go to the airport.
What was his move?
He, like, went in for a kiss or something?
Yeah, he said the doors are locked, and I just believed him.
You know, so obviously it would be like the worst.
That'd be so easy to kidnap or whatever.
You know, I just believed him.
And then, because he also had the drugs.
Right.
So it's like, I'm milling around, and it's like, how close to gay do you want to get for this drug?
Right.
Yeah.
And he just, yeah, something he told me.
He, like, I remember took his watch off and put his watch on me.
Just shit that, like, they trap you in like that.
Oh, yeah.
That'll do it.
And then they'll be like, what time is it?
And they pull, you know, like, right.
Pull you close or whatever.
Yeah.
I don't know, bro.
But.
Next thing you know, you're handcuffed.
Oh, yeah.
And you're just gay.
You know, it's just drug-induced gay.
But what else do we have?
Any other news that's going on?
I don't care about this.
Oh, I like this.
Let's go to that.
Two female cops arrest a shop letter.
A random guy comes in and does it for them.
Didn't do anything.
What were you just ready for?
Please, stop resisting.
I didn't do anything.
What's this address?
What's this address?
Six, kidneys.
Six kidneys.
Where's this at a?
no Oh, man.
Let's go.
Up here.
Thief.
I thought they put the word thief on there.
Wow.
This is the type of stuff you're going to be seeing more of, I think, is that vigilante style stuff, you know.
Like, I was at a store not too long ago, a CVS, and somebody in there was stealing stuff.
And so then you have, then you just get the biggest guy that's in there.
It's just like some chubby kind of vest.
He's red-vested.
So now they have to conf, they're confronting people.
It's like people, it's not even their job description.
Yeah, man.
I mean, that's another thing was towards the end of my LA tenure, like the windows were boarded up at all the drugstores near me where I knew the people that worked there.
And it's like, you know, my neighborhood friends.
And there's plywood over the windows because you were just allowed to steal, I guess, up to $1,000 worth of stuff, which it's almost impossible to steal over $1,000 worth of stuff, you know, in one trip at least.
In one trip, yeah.
Yeah.
Reminds me of that supermarket sweep show.
Remember that?
Yeah, that's basically it.
It's LA.
It's a never-ending supermarket sweep.
Yeah, it's just, but it's like, it puts people in on edge.
You know, it makes it, you know, I noticed when I go back to that CVS, I like feel like, okay, what could go off in here?
You know, it makes me have like a different kind of relationship with the other people in the store.
What's going on?
Where do I kind of position myself a little bit?
Like, it makes you kind of pay attention a little bit more.
I do notice myself kind of having a little bit more insight on my surroundings, which is good, but also makes me kind of more fearful of just people, which I feel like is kind of bad.
You know, it's like you're just waiting for the next person to be that scare bear, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
People are out there being wild.
Not everybody's, not everybody's thriving in these times.
So like, I mean, you have to ask yourself, what would we be doing?
You know what I mean?
If we had nothing and needed something.
Same thing.
Yep.
Exactly.
We'd be in there getting talked to by the big guy in the red shirt.
And it's when people start, when the fabric of kind of like, that we are all buying into the idea that this is a country and these are the rules, when that starts to kind of like, you know, fluctuate, I feel like,
and you see, it's just so many years of some people getting certain treatments, some people getting other treatment, you know, when you start to see that like there's just so much of like your politicians just, you know, gladhanding with their buddies and giving these contracts, you start to feel like there's not really that American dream.
There's not really that thing that can, that everybody's not playing fairly.
I think it starts to make people not respect the game anymore, you know?
But you still have to sit there at the Monopoly board, but you know that they don't respect the game.
And that's when you fucking turn the shoe in and you get that little cannon and you just start fucking just hauling ass, bro.
Just hanging out on Baltic, fucking blowing grams.
I could tell it's been years since you played Monopoly.
I think it had treatment for a cannon.
But it's like you just.
Baltic's the hood, by the way.
You know, that's a rough neighborhood.
That's purple.
Baltic was gangster, dude.
I would just get Baltic and just stay over there and fucking flex.
Just call people names when they pass through, dude.
Hell yeah.
Yell shit.
Yep.
Baltic's over there with Mediterranean.
It's a lower income area.
Is it what was over there?
Baltic?
Yeah, maybe it was.
I think so.
What else we got in the news, man?
I wonder if there's anything else we want to cover here.
I know you got a couple shows tonight, man.
I'm going to come and do one.
We're going to have fun.
Thank you, bro.
Dude, that was so much fun last night.
There's nothing I love more because, again, I'm an old school.
I was raised on like pro wrestling.
I didn't have a dad in my life growing up.
So like there's some, one of the big parts of pro wrestling that makes it wildly successful is the element of surprise, which I love more than anything, combining that in our weird world of stand-up comedy.
So there's nothing.
And again, I do it every week on Kiltoni.
I literally never announce who the guest for that live show is going to be.
So, you know, getting to have William, everybody thinks William, who they already know from my show, is bringing me up.
And instead, he's bringing up Nashville's own Theo Vaughan, you know.
And last weekend in Columbus, I got to bring up Chappelle.
Everybody thought I was going to bring up Rogan.
And instead, I'm bringing up Ohio's own Dave Chappelle and the groom.
I mean, the pop, that element of people looking at the person that they came with like, no fucking way.
And then you see the outline of Chappelle, the iconic.
And the same thing with you.
They see that fucking mullet fluttering in the air.
They're like, we made it.
That wife bait.
That's the first show.
Here we go.
That's that ladybait, dude.
Yeah, you know, there is, that's so interesting.
I never thought about it like that.
It's like when somebody like surprises and ran into the ring.
The ultimate warrior coming out at number 29. Yep.
Anybody else who ran out, it was like, oh, it's good, but it ain't the ultimate warrior.
You know, the other one, the other one, the Undertaker.
The lights go out and you hear the bell toll.
Yeah.
And you just get the chills because you're like, no way.
Right.
And then, and that's, you know, that's, that's a big one.
He lives in Austin as well.
The Undertaker, Elon Musk.
Something happening over there.
There's something cooking.
They got to get him on stage, man.
That's the thing.
Those people have to get on stage and do some time.
Look, I think it's fascinating.
I like the idea of an underdog place.
I like the idea of something new.
Obviously, I'm really curious to see Joe's Club.
It looked great when I walked through it.
I was like, wow, this is really going to be cool.
Oh, yeah.
And the adjustments and the way that it's being built is by real comedians.
You know, every other comedy club, even if it was owned by a guy that used to be a comedian or hosts the shows, you know, all those weird little places scattered around the country, it was never done by actual successful, real touring comedians that could do theaters or arenas or whatever to really surgically make it.
I mean, and, you know, they, we had Louie in town three weeks ago or so, and he came in and even made one more final adjustment.
You know what I mean?
He's like, yeah, it's perfect.
If the ceiling was just 12 inches lower, I think it'd be, it would be even better than perfect.
And we're like, and you know, it's just, you're watching the magic happen.
Joe looks at the construction.
You think we can do it?
You know, yeah, we could do it.
Yeah.
We'll just add a few days.
All right.
So those little tiny screws on like this Boeing 737 are being tightened.
And the entrances and like the class of it is going to be crazy.
Like it's going to be heaven.
It's going to be what we loved about the comedy store, but also with a little bit of a rock and roll and also a little bit of like the shining vibe.
You know, that hotel from the shining.
It's going to be like sort of really classy and cool like that, but also dark and creepy too.
So magic.
We're really excited.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can feel Joe's excitement even when he was walking me through it.
You could feel like, you know, it's interesting to see somebody like that get excited, you know, who's had so many unique things happen to them in their life.
Yeah.
It's cool to see somebody get excited.
Do you think that Joe would ever start a platform?
Because obviously having a club is amazing, right?
It's a tangible thing where you're right there.
You can get up on stage.
You know, it's like, this is the real art.
But I wonder if he ever creates like a, you know, like his, like his own YouTube or like his own, because I feel like he would be the one, obviously, you know, he has the most gravitational pull.
He could.
And the thing is, I think he already has.
I think that he just doesn't want need or want all the credit.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't need to be called the Rogan network.
He just pushes the things that he believes in.
You know what I mean?
I think we're all part of that extension.
I mean, there is no question that he is, that his show is the new Carson.
It's the new tonight show.
Like getting on it and being part of that universe means you're going to get bigger.
Even when they came after him, even when they tried to cancel him, he got bigger.
Everything just gets bigger.
Even I, when all the crazy stuff happened to me and there's a few days where I'm like, oh my God, am I about to go be a crab fisherman in Alaska?
Like what the fuck am I about to do?
And to see that, oh my God, everything got a thousand times better.
Like it's, you know, so I think he sort of already has this universe, you know?
And, you know, if they ever really, really, really come down on free speech and, you know, if YouTube gets crazy or anything like that, then, you know, there's totally something that's going to have to happen.
But I think right now he's, he's doing everything he can for like other people.
It's incredible how he, you know, one thing that's not often talked about is, you know, sometimes you'll go see some of the biggest comedians on planet Earth and you'll notice that their opening acts like aren't always really like they're not like their own killers.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like going back to last night, like I'm like, I wasn't like, oh, I hope I can't follow Theo.
You know what I mean?
Because we've always done this dance.
We've been going up before and after one another for over a decade continuously.
I, and this comes, you know, and this is something that Joe and I have always had in common is like we thrive.
We love the idea of giving the people the best possible human crazy ass show and pulling it off.
You know, that's not fear driven like I think a lot of people are because he's not like that.
Well, he's not like Joe Roe or Joey Diaz to feature for him in an arena in Atlantic City, you know, and all this chaos and Ari Shafir and Duncan and all these wild people, you, me, all the, you know, who wants to really follow that?
It's someone that wants to get better and help people that he thinks are the best.
And, you know, so.
Yeah, he does have an element of not having the fear driven.
Yeah.
I mean, he followed Chappelle in that arena in Columbus two weeks ago like butter, like it was nothing.
And it was, you know.
He doesn't have that part in him.
He doesn't have that fear thing, really.
Exactly.
Fear is not a factor for him.
It really isn't.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
It really isn't.
And if it was, you'd never find he, I don't think you could see it.
He's a diabolical human being.
Like, I mean, you know, obviously he has a just like anybody nowadays, there's a ton of haters out there that can pick apart this, like, oh, horse paste.
But like, anything you try to get them on, it's easily provable that you're just wrong.
Like people that are, you know, oh, he's not a good stand-up.
Well, you're crazy because all of your favorite stand-ups think he's an unbelievable stand-up comedian.
Every single one of your favorite comedians thinks he's a great comedian, knows he's a great comedian.
He's been doing it three decades.
Just because you know him from a podcast or from Ivermectin or from CNN, it doesn't change what reality is.
There's a lot of opinions out there.
But someone like him, and it's so rare, there's not even a second place.
Like he's like, you know, as far as helping people and, you know, staying humble, he's an incredible inspiration in that way.
And I think it's easy for that to slip away.
And once someone thinks that they have it all figured out, I think that's when it starts to slip.
And he doesn't do that.
Constantly writing.
He is.
His new, his hour now, the one I saw two months ago, man, it was, it's, I mean, you don't want to say it's the best stuff I've seen him do, but that's okay to say.
I think he's done a lot of really, really great stuff.
It's the best stuff that I've seen him do.
And you do want to say that about people because you do want them to continue to, you know, it's like 20 years in to be doing the best stuff.
It's where you're supposed to be, really.
Exactly.
But man, it fucking, that shit really, really floored me.
I think there's something about, you know, mainstream media going after him that made him want to be even better.
I'll show you, idiots.
I saw the same thing yesterday.
I was hanging out with my buddy John Rich, country music star.
Hey, you told me about him.
I got to get him on here.
Oh, he's amazing.
And he's, you know, he leans hard right, harder right than some of those faces on Bell's Palsy.
You know what I mean?
All the way.
But everything he says makes like Liberty Bell's Palsy.
Yeah.
Yes, he does.
He's a killer.
You know what I mean?
And he's just, he's got the best intentions and he's a great guy.
And they come after him all the time because he's like, I think everybody should have a gun.
He's on Fox News sometimes.
You know what I mean?
Like he is, he does stand for what he thinks is right and what a lot of people, it turns out, think is right, thinks is right.
And they've come after him a lot lately.
And so he played us a couple songs because he's like, you guys want to hear a song?
This was number one on the Billboard charts for 12 days and nobody talked about it.
None of the media, nobody, because he didn't use one of the big record labels.
And he, because he criticizes the he criticizes the censorship of Twitter and Facebook and YouTube in the lyrics.
So he decided he's not going to promote it on any of those things.
So he literally just promoted it through Truth Social and Rumble.
These like, Mamarco loves those.
Right.
And literally number one on the billboard charts for 12 days.
He's bringing up.
People didn't know what to do.
He's above Lizzo.
He's above Taylor Swift.
He's above all of these things.
And he's talking about these things that he's always felt.
And we made this correlation, him and I. We're like, whoa, because we've both, you know, we've been living in this world the last couple of years where people are trying to chop you down.
And it makes you more of who you are.
He's always sort of been, don't, don't take my money.
You know, I'll, you know, less taxes.
He's always been that.
But now the lyrics are clear.
He's literally saying what he wants, just like how I've doubled down in my stand-up.
And now I'm only exclusively talking about stuff that I shouldn't be talking about.
And I have all those premises to myself because so many people are, you know, obviously you want to be on Netflix.
You want to be on this.
You want to be on HBO.
Sure, who doesn't want to be?
But the reality is that none of my stuff could be there.
It would literally just cause a riot.
You know, people would just quit or whatever.
Right.
But the people love it.
It's that live show effect of like, whoa, we're doing it.
Oh, my goodness.
He just said that OJ's wife had it coming.
Like, oh, my God, what the hell?
As you evolve too, because you had a special on Netflix a few years back.
But as you evolve, it's like, yeah, if the platforms won't allow certain stuff or they don't just see, okay, this is just humor that's for some people, not for some, whatever.
But if they only want to kind of navigate a certain area or only willing to go to certain, which like, you know, banisters, which is their right, but it does create not only for putting things out on YouTube, but really for going to see live comedy.
It's like, if you want to see kind of what I really want to say, come see live comedy.
Yeah.
And I find myself wanting to talk more about things that I want to talk about.
I just even realized last night I'm still telling a lot of like jokes and stories and stuff and I love that.
But I would love to probably have a little bit more.
I just noticed I'm kind of evolving.
I was just kind of noticing, I was like, okay, I love this stuff.
This is good.
It's entertaining.
But also, I want to start thinking, well, how do I get more of some of my actual thoughts, passions, and passions?
Yeah, things that like really move me, you know?
So I'm glad that those feelings are even arising in me.
What do we see right here?
Country music star Sun so-called woke record labels and released a song directly to Donald Trump's social media app TrueSocial, catapulting it to number one in the world on the Apple iTunes song chart.
And the billboard, which even this isn't covering.
Rich saw his song outperform those hitmakers such as Billie Eilish, Kate Bush, and Lizzo.
Here I am with no record label, no publisher, no marketing deal.
And when he's telling you this, and you're in his fucking living room sitting around Johnny Cash guitars and pictures with him and all.
Oh, beautiful home.
I went there for a party once.
Yeah.
And I mean, he's the real deal.
He's, you know, a lot of people just, again, just like Rogan, you might just know him as a guy you hate because he's on Fox News sometimes, or oh, he used truth social.
I don't like that, but in reality, again, this is a guy completely respected by all of his peers in his industry.
So, you know, for him, when he's telling you, like, dude, I did it, and I didn't even do it the way that everyone has done it to this point.
He literally did with this song what Rogan did with his podcast.
He showed an entire industry of, you know.
They invite the whole world to come live in our land and leave our countrymen dying in Afghanistan.
They say, let go of Jesus and let government save.
You can have back your freedoms if you do what we say.
Yeah, he's putting it out there, isn't he?
Yep.
He's saying what he feels, progress.
It's strong.
That's a single.
I got to check that out.
Yeah, it's cool.
Interesting, man.
I'm not sure what that version's like, but I just heard just him with an acoustic guitar yesterday in his living room, and it was unbelievable.
And there it is right there, number one.
Go back to that, please, brother.
Yeah.
Number one song right there.
And it stayed there for 12 days.
That's the other part that, you know, even this article obviously came out when it happened.
So like it doesn't tell you that staying number one for 12 days is its own insane accomplishment.
That those things are always rotating and jumping around.
And there it is, $1.29.
And boom.
And he gives, you know, percentages of his earnings to, he has his own scholarship where he gives money for kids to go to college who, if they had a parent die in the military, he pays for their college.
He's given over a million dollars to put kids through college.
So you find out that some of these bad guys are the good guys and that the good guys, you look at Catholic priests and stuff, like, do good, do this.
That's why like virtue signaling and a lot of, and I keep ragging on LA, but it's like, you know, a lot of these people that want to work in the industry say all these things and they're always, this is wrong and that's wrong.
And why are we, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, what about science and all these different things?
But it almost seems like the good guys sometimes are the bad guys, right?
The politicians.
Oh, yeah.
Greece.
Yeah, I've always hated politicians.
Right.
But I think we start to see that that whole mold, all that, it's not really working.
I think, you know, for a long time, people believed in it.
There's something good here.
But I think after, especially after the pandemic, after people being scared in a lot of cities, you know, and violence, I think people are starting to just wonder what's going on here.
I think it's deeper than just in our daily lives.
Like this bigger thing, like, does the society that we constructed and that we've been building and riding, what's going to happen to it?
Like, which way is it going to go?
You know?
In perspective, right?
Like the other night after a Kiltoni taping, I was telling my producer guy that I go, it's so crazy.
I just had five different people come up to me and literally say the same thing of, I can't believe that you get to be mean to people for two hours every week on a show for a living.
And I go, and I had another five totally different people on my way up to the green room say, I can't believe that you have created a format to help people.
And you're the only person giving these random people a shot to be seen.
And it's funny how they're all at the same show and these people are seeing two different shows kind of.
You know what I mean?
And I think it's that way sort of for everything nowadays.
Sometimes something can be right there and we choose what we like about it or what we don't like about it, right?
Well, it's a bummer too.
Sometimes it's like, I wish I could press a button more and get different perspectives.
Like it's like, sometimes I'm like, man, I'm so, I'm not inhibited.
I am inhibited by my own perspective.
Not that it's right or wrong, but sometimes it's both, but that it's like, man, I wonder what life is if you're, what has life seemed like if you're this person, if you're a woman, if you're a man, if you're black or what is it, Japanese, you know, or, you know, I've just like wonder what it all seems like, you know, because then it's like, yeah, are my views off?
Are they on?
Is it okay if they're just right for me in my own space?
You know, I think that's the part that starts to feel kind of scary sometimes.
It's like, well, these are my views for my perception.
Is it okay to share them if I can't get everybody, if I can't, you know, is it okay to share them even if I'm without taking into context what other people's views are?
Like, it's just, it's hard.
Right.
It's hard sometimes.
Yeah.
You know, because you try to, you want to be open-minded, you want, but you also want to respect what you intrinsically feel, you know?
And I think that's another place, another area where the pandemic hit hard.
Like people like me and you that went out and were like, we need to be around stuff that's open.
We need to go out once in a while, listen to music or just be around people or just be somewhere that's open.
You know, that's a character trait.
You know what I mean?
And I think that a lot of people that stayed in and stayed locked down and things like this created almost a little bit of bitterness towards those that might speak a little bit more freely because we know people better, because we're socializing more and out more.
And we might have a Japanese friend or a black woman or this or a transgender or this or that or anything.
So we sort of can speak more freely because we feel like we know these people and this and that.
And meanwhile, some, you know, person who's at home on the internet, who never goes out can be like, you know, you shouldn't even be talking about this is what we have to because it also caters To that person's life.
But also, guys like you and me, I think we never really liked the rules.
Right.
You've never liked the rules.
Hell no.
No.
Uh-uh.
Never.
You've never liked the rules.
And so anytime there's rules or some type of control that comes in, I really don't like that.
It hits in a place in me.
I don't want to be, you know, I think it goes back to just my childhood.
I didn't like where we were.
I didn't like the whole position that I got put into in my life when I was young, blah, blah, blah.
So it's like, I'll reject anything that tries to fucking make me be some type of way.
It's a blessing and a curse, I think, sometimes.
But what, so your dad passed away when you were a kid?
I mean, I heard you mentioned that earlier.
No, he was, he's alive.
And what type of job did he have?
He ran an Italian restaurant and did some bookieing.
Basically, Youngstown's sort of like a little Italian mafia hub.
So everybody there, when I was a kid, was involved in organized crime in some effect or another, including my mom, who was running numbers for the whole city.
It was a big illegal gambling operation that she used just to put me through the private school there and make sure that I had a new pair of Nikes once a year.
You know what I mean?
I was like poor.
And did you realize?
Would you put the cards out to people and they would circle the games and that sort of thing?
Yep.
Yep.
Well, it was mostly like betting.
Mostly like you call and it's like, all right, I'll put 20 on the Packers.
But the thing that my mom was doing was also like writing down numbers.
So you could play like the pick three lottery or the pick four lottery and it was like straight or boxed, which means you're playing it straight up or the three numbers come out anyway.
It was crazy that I used to like just see her on the phone like writing down numbers and like doing it all the time and collecting money from people that would come over and she would just grab a roll of cash from them and she would put me through private school with that just enough to survive.
You know, people think that families from that are involved with organized crime are always rich and have a mansion like in the Sopranos and a big SUV, but it's like, it wasn't like that in Youngstown.
It's like the lower class mob.
So my dad and my mom were married to other people when they had me.
And they already had kids.
Totally.
Oh, wow.
Forever.
For 11 years.
They were having an affair.
Super affair.
I was a super bastard before it was cool.
Like an extreme bastard.
Wow.
Because my dad didn't want, you know, my mom didn't want me to have my dad's last name because obviously he had a family around the corner and the whole thing's a mess.
But did her husband know that it wasn't his kid?
Correct.
They hadn't been having sex.
It was just one of those like back then, you know, 1984, divorce was like frowned upon and this and that.
But once she came, once she was like pregnant, they're like, all right, it's time for you to find another place to live.
And so he was out and I was in and the rest is history.
It's crazy, wild times.
But it's a lot of unacceptance.
It feels like you probably felt like you didn't fairly fit in with any.
Exactly.
Luckily, my four older brothers and sisters on my mom's side were super open.
Like, no, you're a Hinchcliffe.
You're one of us.
You're, you know, we got you.
And that's another thing that changed my life is like I was raised with this council of much older brothers and sisters, 12 years, 14, 18, and 20 years older than me.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I have a sister that's 58 right now.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That's cool.
And my youngest brother is 50. Yeah.
12 years older than me.
So like I used to go down, my mom used to ship me to Columbus, Ohio for a month every summer when I was out of school.
And I would just get to hang out with my brothers and sisters who were going to the Ohio State University.
So there I was, a little nine-year-old hanging out with a bunch of 20-something year-olds and me trying to make them laugh when they were stoned.
I didn't even know they were high.
They would just all go to the bedroom for like 20 minutes and then come out like giggling.
And I would try to make them laugh and I would do goofy stuff.
You got to fit in.
Magic tricks and all this lame stuff to just try to entertain them.
And it was fun.
They thought it was great and they thought I was funny.
So like little things like that, it's where it all kind of started.
But yeah, the dad not always trying to impress the dad thing was a big deal.
I mean, it is with anybody.
Again, to reference the Sopranos, like, and to reference everything, you know, it all goes back to like crazy psychology from our very, we are a product of our childhood.
So crazy, isn't it?
Totally.
And I mean, it's so interesting.
When you really let go and realize like, yeah, we're not that, we're not that original.
We are like a victim of like the story is written early on.
We're just playing out the script that our psychology wrote, right?
I never thought about it like that.
Me neither.
I never said that before.
I like that.
It's like the psychology.
That shit was written right in the first couple of years.
Exactly.
And now we are just following the.
Yep.
Because I found out at a very early age that my dad, my mom used to tell me that my dad was a truck driver, I think it was or something like that.
I can't exactly remember that part, but it was some job where he was traveling a lot.
And one day on the school bus, we went to pick up my buddy Jeff Lewis over on Coronado.
And I noticed a car that looked like my dad's across the street in the driveway.
So it's only like three, four, five blocks from where I was raised.
And I look over and I memorize the license plate.
Maybe I wrote it down.
I don't know.
And then the next time he came to visit, which was usually like once every couple weeks or so, or maybe once a month for, you know, half an hour.
Next time he came over, I matched up the license plate to this, you know, to this Bronco that I saw every day when we were picking up Jeff Lewis.
And I didn't even bring it up to him because I never wanted to like start any trouble.
I always wanted him to think I was cool.
But I said to mom after he left that day, I go, so I noticed that his car is always in a driveway across the street from Jeff Lewis's house on Coronado.
And she like looked like she had seen a ghost because he's like, she's like, oh my God, this 10-year-old just figured out that his dad lives right around the corner.
So then, once I realized at such an early age that my dad was just a few blocks away every day, the whole time, and she sat me down and told me everything.
So all of a sudden, I realized like my mom's kind of a liar and my dad is raising a whole different family.
Right.
So all of a sudden, there's this fire inside where it's like, I'm going to get him to like me one day.
I'm going to get him to know that I'm the cool kid.
Right.
Cut to two months ago, Pittsburgh, or no, maybe a few months ago, but Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the middle of an arena, PPG Paints Arena where the penguins play, where, you know, a bunch of crazy stuff happens.
Only 50 minutes away from Youngstown, Ohio.
And him and his girlfriend came out and saw me.
And, you know, he's like 75 now or whatever.
And like, he's just, he just couldn't believe it.
I mean, there's not, I don't, yeah, it's just crazy, especially being from Youngstown.
You just never think you're going to see anybody in the middle of an arena that you know performing to a sold out 360 degree crowd, floor filled all the way to the upper deck and, you know, doing good because we're working this whole time.
You know what I mean?
So it's like a lot of laughs.
And he comes back to the, we gave him full access to the green room because there was like a big fight that night.
It was Anthony Joshua versus, what's his name?
The best.
Best big boxer.
Yeah.
And so, and Youngstown's a boxing town.
So now he's backstage with me, Rogan, and we're watching boxing on a big screen TV with never-ending, you know, you know what these fancy green rooms are like.
There's gourmet pizza and anything you could possibly want.
Coffee, right?
Whatever you're in the mood for, cooler filled with all your favorite soda pops.
And like, you know, I realized I like did it kind of, you know what I mean?
That's like, hell yeah.
It was like the, it's a real sort of undeniable victory that I'm like, ooh, wow.
I didn't even realize like, oh, this is cool because it's what it's what you want.
Yeah.
You want to impress these people that made you with their body parts.
I know.
It's so strange.
It's tricky because he came out of his wiener because he squirted inside of my mother's vagina.
I need to impress him.
And show him one day.
He didn't even have the biggest probably basic wiener.
Oh, totally.
Nowhere near our friend here.
Yeah.
Nowhere near.
Yeah, it's funny, man.
I don't know.
Sometimes it's like, yeah, I think I wanted to be seen so much by my mother that it's like I started, I had to get everybody to see me.
And it was like, hopefully one day my mother will see me, you know?
And it's like, I don't even know if I'd have gone on that whole journey if I just had this sort of attention or affection, you know?
Right.
It's pretty fascinating, man.
I think that that's a real through line in our industry.
It's like, I would be interested to know who the funniest person is that had both parents there and caring about them and eating dinner at a table with like a nice placemat every day and like, you know what I mean?
A glass of ice perhaps, the little things, you know what I mean?
That like seem so normal that for some reason nobody on the comedy store lineup is for that.
You know what I mean?
Like, what are the odds?
You know what I mean?
It's interesting, man.
Meanwhile, if you sat at a table with engineers, they'd be like, what do you mean your parents weren't there?
I don't get it.
What do you mean a placemat?
Of course you had a placemat.
Like, oh, I ate on a TV tray.
I would make frozen pierogies.
You know what I mean?
And disgusting, Ohio.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, an engineer would be like, my mother was 35 degrees to my left.
My father was at 70 degrees.
My father was four blocks away.
I know.
Fuck.
So close.
That's crazy.
That's almost, that's almost, it's kind of heartbreaking.
It's wild, but I wouldn't have changed a goddamn thing.
I live my dreams and I'm happier than ever.
And, you know, it's just wild.
It's insane.
Yeah.
And shows with goofballs like you, sold out shows on the road, get to go to different cities and hit up people like John and you and, you know, whoever's in that city, these relationships that I built from doing dirty, stupid jokes all over.
It's like, yeah.
It really is.
Oh, it's really lucky.
It's really the gift of not getting those things and then getting them in little increments from other people, you know, from people that care enough to support you, to believe in you, to like you.
It's like you slowly get little bitty drops of all of that that you needed long ago.
You get it from people.
It's pretty amazing.
Yeah, it's funny because I always thought for so long, man, how do I change this past?
It's just so impossible.
So all I can really do is just move forward with what I have and be grateful for it.
Tony Hitchcliffe, man.
Hell yeah.
Dude, thanks so much, bro.
Thank you.
This was so much fun.
Yeah, because, you know, we've known each other for a long time, but I have never really gotten to really just sit and kind of learn about you.
And I appreciate it, man.
Heck yeah.
You know, I am proud of you.
Thank you.
Likewise.
An honor to be on your show.
You're hilarious.
I'm excited to do more shows here tonight.
Yeah, it's going to be fun, man.
Kill Tony.
If you guys haven't seen this, you really need to go and see it live.
People love it online.
It has a huge following on YouTube.
It's out every Tuesday.
Every Monday at 8. Every Monday at 8. Central Standard Time.
Yeah.
But it's always there on YouTube.
We've had some of our biggest shows lately.
We're like hitting a stride.
It's crazy to think that like this thing that I work on forever is better than ever.
Well, it's so pure.
That's the thing about it.
It's like, fuck, no wonder this isn't on television.
Because they can't do that.
There's too much.
There's too many cooks in the kitchen.
There's too many knives and spoons in the bowl.
This is just a fucking dirty, real porridge, dude.
But you guys pull it off really well.
And there's enough of the production value that's there.
Even when you're there in person, it's like there's moving cameras and there's things going on.
And it just, man, it is, it blew my mind when I went back.
When I went back and did it.
Thank you.
It really is.
It's as unique as something could be, man.
Well, we can't wait to have you back on.
I'd love to come back, man.
Tony Hinchcliffe, thanks, bro.
Thank you, Dave.
Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.
I found I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Hi, Sweet.
Is it there?
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
John.
I'll take a quarter potter with cheese and a McFlurry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club.
Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?
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